


And Quietly Get Swallowed by a Wave

by viklikesfic (v_angelique)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-26
Updated: 2007-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v_angelique/pseuds/viklikesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I haven't been posting much solo lately, though I have a lot in the ringer.  This ficlet is inspired by my own experiences with haunting beach weather and the Decembrists' "Summersong," and I hope it'll tide you over.  Oh, and speaking of birthdays, if you're on the flist and had one this summer, I likely will have something for you very shortly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Quietly Get Swallowed by a Wave

_Ramblin', where to begin?  
I taste the summer on your peppery skin.  
Been saved, the warmer the wave  
I felt a slip into a watery grave._

Billy let his hands sink into the cool sand, feeling the grains sift about and settle over his fingers. He thought about how they came to be there—fragments of rock, maybe? Bits of sea floor, brought up millions of years ago by the tide to form this beach? He didn't know much about geology, but sometimes it was fun to contemplate.

Next to him, Dom lay flat on his back, not caring if he got sand in his hair. His black swim trunks were wet from the dip he'd taken when they'd arrived, but Billy himself was still dry. He was waiting for the perfect wave, and the closer the dark, ominous storm clouds came, rolling in quick over the horizon, the better the waves would be.

The light was strange now, not eerie exactly but at least melancholy, a little surreal. It was two in the afternoon but it felt later. It was warm, and it seemed strange to Billy that Christmas was only a few weeks away. Scooping up a pile of sand with both hands, he sprinkled it slowly onto Dom's stomach. Dom laughed, but didn't scoot away, and let Billy build up his little mound. Smiling secretively, Billy reached for a twig of driftwood and stuck it in Dom's bellybutton.

"I claim this land for Britain," he said softly, and Dom smiled.

"You can't claim me. I live here."

"Do you have a flag?" Billy asked, nudging Dom's half-buried ankle with his foot.

"Come swim with me," Dom said, instead of feeding Billy the next line, sitting up suddenly and upsetting the little twig, the sand that didn't stay caked on his wet body falling back to the beach. He stood and stretched and then offered a gritty hand, which Billy took, hauling himself up. They stood at the same height, he and Dom, and though they were constantly arguing about who was taller, he liked that. They each took a board and walked towards the waterline, watching the sun pierce suddenly through the blanket of grey.

"Fecking amazing," Billy said quietly, and though a wind was roaring in, warm around their bodies and hard enough to make a mess of their hair, Dom reached out and squeezed Billy's shoulder with the hand not currently holding a surfboard under his arm.

Once they got to the breakers, it was too hard to hear each other over the roar of wind and ocean, and they paddled out silently. Of course it was dangerous, surfing alone just before the storm. They'd have to gauge it just right, and both were competitive in nature. Too much time spent trying to find _the_ wave and they'd both be washed out to sea. But Billy trusted Dom, and Dom trusted Billy, and so they paddled on.

The first few fizzled out underneath his stomach, and Billy sighed in frustration, mad at himself for taking the effort he'd need later in trying to out-swim them. He was normally a very patient surfer, but something about the weather, maybe, caught him unawares. Or maybe he was just matching himself to Dom, who tended to swim recklessly into anything, good or bad. They had a good rhythm of pull-and-release; one would try to catch a wave while the other watched. The waves on this beach weren't huge, but they lasted a long time, white foam guzzling over the crests for a minute at a time before they finally hit land. They each tried a few with limited success, and then took a break, floating on their boards with wet hair and secret smiles.

"I love this," Dom said, when they had paddled close enough to reach out and grasp hands, holding on despite the slickness of their skin and forcing the ocean to have its way with them as one unit.

"It's lovely," Billy murmured again, but his eyes were dark. Dom's lips curved in a brighter smile than before, more mischievous, and then they saw it.

The perfect wave.

There was normally a deference to their style, a gentlemanly nature where one would let the other take a big tube, rare as they might be. But this afternoon it was somehow different, and without speaking they drifted apart, looked back over their shoulders, and started paddling.

Of course, there was logic in not riding the same wave too close to one another; no one wanted to run into another surfer and there were rules to the ocean just like there were rules to a highway. But every now and again, Billy and Dom ignored the rules, and when Billy planted his hands, using his upper body strength to hold himself up and slipping his feet gracefully under his body as the wave built at his back, he knew without looking that Dom was there a few yards down, moving in exactly the same fashion.

It was a good one, holding out almost all the way to the beach, and when it fizzled and the board wobbled, and Billy jumped back into the water, he was grinning as he lifted his hands up to slick back his hair. A few meters away, Dom was also grinning, floating on his back with his toes peeking up out of the gently rolling water.

The ocean pulled them together, which was an occurrence as improbable as an approaching storm this dramatic after the weather they'd been having recently. But somehow instead of floating along at the same trajectory and speed, they ended up coming together, and Dom reached out to take Billy's hand again. Another moment later, they were close enough for their chests to touch, their boards floating on the leashes a few feet away. Billy let his feet touch bottom, and his arms slipped around Dom's waist, holding them steady as two people could possibly be in a constantly moving body of water.

Dom's lips brushed Billy's in a manner that could reasonably be construed as friendly, and it wasn't hard to blame on the atmosphere, the wind picking up all around them but dead in this little pocket of warm, calm water. The moment would blow away with the wind when it came, and the little twinge of eroticism Billy suddenly felt would slip easily underwater, buried in the sand that shifted around his toes and never to emerge.

Still, it was a nice kiss, and Billy's arms tightened, and Dom's smile was something that would stick with him for a long time.

_Summer arrives, with a length of lights.  
Summer blows away,  
And quietly gets swallowed by a wave._


End file.
